Ebola vaccine could be ‘game changer’

Early results of an experimental Ebola vaccine show major promise, global health regulators said Friday, providing hope a year after the deadly virus swept across the West African region.

The World Health Organization announced the successful early results — including a remarkable 100 percent success rate — of the vaccine’s clinical trial conducted in the Ebola-stricken country of Guinea, data the Lancet Journal then published.

“If proven effective, this is going to be a game changer,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan said. “It will change the management of the current Ebola outbreak and future outbreaks.”

The vaccine, developed by Canada’s public health agency with NewLink Genetics of the U.S. and manufactured by Merck, was tested on about 4,000 direct and indirect contacts of Ebola patients.

Initial results showed that zero of the 2,014 contacts receiving immediate vaccination contracted the disease after ten days, producing the 100 percent success rate, though WHO Assistant Director-General Marie-Paule Kieny said she expected the true result to fall between 75 and 100 percent.

The WHO said trialing of the vaccine would move forward, expanding testing on adolescents and children and immunizing for all contacts immediately, as opposed to delayed vaccines for experimental control.

News of the vaccine’s early success came as the United Nations announced it was concluding its mission on Ebola.

Since its outbreak in March 2014, the Ebola virus has infected nearly 28,000 and kill more than 11,000 people, the vast majority of whom have been in the West African countries of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.

Cases of infection have dwindled significantly, with the WHO reporting only seven cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone combined this week. In Liberia, where Ebola re-emerged after the country was declared free in May, there were zero cases reported.

The global health body explains Merck’s vaccine as a “good” microorganism disguised as the Ebola virus. It tricks the body of the vaccinated person, triggering an immune response that protects them when coming into contact with someone with the virus.

WHO officials, welcoming the promise of Merck’s vaccine, also suggested on Friday that studies for other vaccines in advanced development, like those of GlaxosmithKline and Johnson & Johnson, would face difficulty, because of diminishing numbers of Ebola cases.

The WHO also unveiled a slate of organizational changes on Friday, responding to criticism and a blistering June panel report that said the body was too politically and culturally flat-footed in responding to the Ebola outbreak.

Changes include a more streamlined emergency response platform, a “blueprint” for the accelerated development of medical products in the face of crises, and an advisory group to oversee implementation of these changes.

But Chan, who said she met with the report’s author Dame Barbara Stocking, admitted the organization would be slower to adopt some reforms, like creating incentives for countries to declare public health outbreaks and discouraging unsolicited travel and trade bans.

“We collectively were slow [on Ebola] and that’s why the WHO must learn lessons and look forward and seize this opportunity to strengthen global health and partnerships.”